The views published here are of an ecosocialist nature and from the broad red, green and black political spectrum. The opinions expressed are the personal opinions of the writers and are not necessarily the view of any political parties or groupings that they belong to. Please feel free to comment on the posts here. If you would like to contact us directly, you can email us at mike.shaughnessy@btinternet.com. Follow the blog on Twitter @MikeShaugh

Tuesday, 31 July 2018

With stories
circulating about the British government stockpiling food,
as part of a plan to cover the eventuality of a no deal Brexit, there is talk
that the UK should become more self-sufficient in food once we leave the
European Union (EU). Of course all this would take time, certainly longer than by
our exit from the EU, which will happen in eight months’ time. But as a longer
term objective, this would surely be a sensible thing to do. It would avoid
tailbacks at ports and environmentally concerned people should welcome it, too.
But is it feasable?

Britain has not been self-sufficient in food since the
eighteenth century (when all of Ireland was included), and even then some foods
were imported. During world war two the country was close to being
self-sufficient in food, but rationing was introduced in 1940 and didn’t fully
end until 1954. Some lessons might be learned from some of the practices employed,
especially making more land available for farming, from this emergency period.

According
to the UK government’s figures, in 2016, Britons consumed only
49% of the total food and drink consumed in this country, from UK food sources.Of the other 51%, by far the biggest imports (30%) came
from the EU. Some of the food produced in the UK is of course exported, but
this only amounts to about 25% of the total produced. So, even if we stopped
exporting food, we would still have about a quarter of what is needed to make
up. The trade deficit in food, feed and drink increased in 2016 to £22.2
billion, up from £20.9 billion in 2015.

So replacing this amount of imported food would take some
doing, but I think it is possible to get close to it. It will require a massive
restructuring of UK farming in particular though, but it would also need a
complete change in the culture surrounding food consumption, from the British
people themselves. We have become so used to getting unseasonal food when we
want it, and have long had a taste for fruit, tea and coffee, that is difficult
to grow naturally in the British climate.

Agriculture in the UK uses 69% of the country's land
area, (43 million acres) but this includes land used for growing biofuels. It
is certainly possible, with the will, to increase this amount land with more
small holdings, in cities and towns, and people could be encouraged grow their
own food in gardens and allotments. Organic farming in Cuba
has moved in this direction since the collapse of the USSR, when chemicals and
pesticides stopped being provided to Cuban farmers.

Britain is an island of course, and so has access to
fishing, and we don’t eat nearly enough locally caught fish at the moment. But
people’s tastes have moved towards warmer water fish, like tuna and monkfish,
myself included. There would certainly be extra capacity in UK off shore
fishing, but will people want to eat it? In world war two just about the only
food that wasn’t rationed, was fish and chips, but people got fed up with
rationing generally. That was over sixty years ago, and much has changed in
food fashions since then.

There is no doubt, that a vegan, vegetarian,
pescatarian or even low meat diet would make food self-sufficiency much easier
to achieve. Beef and dairy farming especially is an unproductive use of farming
land. But again, the popular food culture of Big Macs etc, make for a huge
barrier to reducing the demand for beef products.

With the average age of a farm owner now 59, and with
the difficulties getting crop pickers etc as we leave the EU, it doesn’t look
as though the British like farming much anyway.

I can’t see why we couldn’t be more self-sufficient while
remaining within the EU, since we sell off 30% of our fishing quota to all
bidders now, for example. Brexit may well force this issue onto the agenda
though, but is self-sufficiency in food the likely outcome? I have to say I
think not, at least in the medium term. People want things to carry on exactly
as they have done. The demand will be filled mainly from North America, Australia
and New Zealand, (probably with lower hygiene standards) rather than
from our closest neighbours, Ireland, France and the Netherlands, as currently.

There is no reason why ecosocialists and greens should
not campaign for more food self-sufficiency, but we should at least recognise
that it is a mountain to climb, mainly because of the British people’s prevailing
cultural attitudes to food. It would be easier to keep our existing
arrangements with the EU, but that may not be possible.

Sunday, 29 July 2018

According to
data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 2018 is
on pace to be the fourth hottest year on record. Only three other years have
been hotter: 2015, 2016 and 2017.

"The
impacts of climate change are no longer subtle," Michael Mann, a climate
scientist and director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State
University, told CNN.

"We are
seeing them play out in real time in the form of unprecedented heat waves,
floods, droughts and wildfires. And we've seen them all this summer," he
said.

Even more
than extreme weather,
climate change is best exemplified by the consistent rise in temperatures year
after year.

NOAA shows
that the first half of 2018 was characterized by warmer to
much-warmer-than-average conditions across the Earth's land and ocean surfaces.
Record warmth was present across portions of the global oceans as well as parts
of the Mediterranean Sea and surrounding areas. New Zealand and small areas
across North America, Asia and Australia also had record warm year-to-date
temperatures. Cooler-than-average conditions were limited to the eastern and
central tropical Pacific Ocean, central tropical Indian Ocean, the North
Atlantic Ocean, and parts of western Russia and eastern Canada. No land or
ocean areas had record cold January–June temperatures.

Averaged as a
whole, the combined land and ocean surface temperature for the globe during
January–June 2018 was 0.77°C (1.39°F) above the 20th century average and the
fourth highest since global records began in 1880. The global land-only
temperature was the fifth highest on record at +1.19°C (+2.14°F). The global
ocean-only temperature of 0.60°C (1.08°F) above average was also the fifth
highest on record.

Five of six
continents had a January–June temperature that ranked among the ten warmest
such period on record. Europe, Africa, and Oceania had a January–June
temperature that ranked among the five highest since continental records began
in 1910.

Climate
scientists sounded
alarms this week as reports circulated of extreme weather and
record-breaking high temperatures all over the globe, with dozens of deaths and
thousands of hospitalizations reported in some countries—while one journalist
with a major platform on corporate cable news admitted the news media's failure
to give serious attention to the link between the climate crisis and such
events.

"There
is no doubt that the prolonged extreme temperatures and floods we are
witnessing around the world right now are a result of climate change,"
said Caroline Rance, climate campaigner for Friends of the Earth Scotland.
"Temperature records are being broken across the U.K. and globally,
exactly as climate science has long warned, and with devastating
consequences."

This work is
licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Tuesday, 24 July 2018

Jeremy Hunt, the newly appointed British Foreign
Secretary, claimed
yesterday on a visit to Berlin, that the British public will blame the
European Union (EU) if Britain leaves the organisation without a post-leaving deal.
He said, should this be the case his ‘real concern is that it would change
British public attitudes to Europe for a generation.’ He perhaps means the
older generation, but would this really be the case generally?

There is no doubt that the British government would
try to shift the blame onto the EU, eagerly aided and abetted by the right wing
media, of Mail, Express, Sun and Telegraph. Members of the public who are fans
of the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson, will probably take this line
too, but this not the vast majority of people.

What of the 16 million people who voted to Remain in
the EU two years ago? What about the 27% of registered voters who didn’t bother
to turn out to vote, and those who were not registered to vote? What of the
British nationals living in the EU? What about British businesses who will lose
money and their workers who are made redundant? What of those people who voted
to leave, but now regret their decision?

These groups are much less likely to blame the EU, and
more likely to blame the British government. Even amongst leave voters who
still want Britain to leave, might some of these people blame the Tories for
botching the process of leaving through incompetence? Especially, if the dire
predictions of chaos on 30 March 2019,come to pass.

You have to remember that there was no clamour for a
referendum on leaving the EU in the country, only in the Tory party. Yes, UKIP
were picking up votes, at that stage mainly from the Tories, but they didn’t
win any seats in Parliament, other than from a defector from the Tory party.
Our membership of the EU has been a running sore in the Tory party for at least
since the early 1990s and the arguments over the Treaty of Maastricht. John
Major’s Tory party was riddled with division about Britain signing up.

This is why David Cameron had to offer a referendum
when he became leader of the Tory party and prime minister. Cameron was of
course in coalition with the pro EU Lib Dems at the time, and thought he would
never have to follow through on the referendum promise, because the Lib Dems
would block it. Surprisingly, he won an outright majority for the Tories in 2015,
and had to hold to it.

The handling of Brexit has been a textbook exercise in
rank incompetence, as the in-fighting in the Tory party continues, while the
country is going to the dogs. The Tories don’t care about the country though,
only their own fixation with the EU. If things do go terribly wrong, which is certainly
more than a possibility at the moment, I think many people will know who is truly
to blame. For the sake of unity in the Tory party, the nation is being torn
apart in an almost casually reckless fashion.

But even if Hunt is right and I am wrong, how would
this anti-EU sentiment materialise? Will the British stop holidaying in Spain,
stop buying German cars and stop buying French wine and cognac? I somehow doubt
it, although all of these things are likely to become more expensive. Some
people though may turn to violence against EU nationals, even if they have
become British citizens, but people like that should not be placated.

Hunt’s comments could be taken as an encouragement to
act violently, which is another example of the government’s reckless approach. Hate
crimes have already rocketed since the referendum which the government’s style
in the handling of Brexit has surely played a part. I just hope we are rid of
this government before it is too late to salvage the situation, which in practice
probably means by the autumn.

Sunday, 22 July 2018

The ‘housing question’ to which Engels famously
contributed and that raged in the 1870s in Germany, has returned, especially in
global cities, such as Sydney and Melbourne. Such challenges are often framed
as ‘unmet demand’ with calls to stimulate housing supply yet price trends are
more complicated than simple scarcity of housing in an era marked by a
significant number of empty dwellings.

Last century households shrank from 4.5 to roughly 2.5
people per dwelling in Australia as the average size of new dwellings grew to
break international records. Housing reflects, and creates space for,
over-consumption. Growing indebtedness and consumption force us to become more
integrated within, and therefore to perpetuate, capitalism. Competing for
rentals and homes is commonplace.

Commodification and financialisation of the housing
market triggered the global financial crisis and contributes to the global
environmental crisis of which climate change is just the tip of the iceberg.
Buildings contribute around 30 percent of world carbon emissions. The housing
crisis is a multi-headed monster.

Left responses

Left responses include more public or social housing,
regulated rents, shelters for the homeless, taxes on empty buildings and
banning foreign investment in housing (Madden and
Marcuse 2016, 200). Instead, I advocate ecosocialist principles for, and
ideal types of, housing and various anti-capitalist strategies for achieving
them. Ecosocialists
focus on meeting our needs fairly and sustainably within the limits of Earth’s
regenerative capacity — replacing individualistic, bourgeois society with a
collective and creative sense of humanity.

In practice, permaculture, degrowth and simple living
movements have used alternative housing and household practices as strategies
for, and illustrations of, post-capitalist economic and political
relationships. As such, Australian permaculture co-originator David Holmgren (2017,
2018) has argued that such
strategies marry social with environmental solutions, and everyday means with
revolutionary ends.

A main aim of Small is
Necessary: Shared Living on a Shared Planet — just published by Pluto Press
(London) — is to show that struggling for affordable and environmentally
sustainable housing can cradle grassroots governance, collective sustainability
and one planet footprints. ‘Collaborative housing’ models discussed range from
shared households, dwellings and land co-owned by three or more non-related
people to cohousing in numerous attached dwellings and apartments, and
ecovillages that include productive farming to achieve substantial collective
sufficiency. Cases of ‘eco-collaborative housing’ drawn on include housing
solutions realised by activists, such as squatters in Berlin and Barcelona.

Eco-collaborative
housing and self-management

Small Is Necessary interrogates dwelling size
historically and the future significance of ‘eco-collaborative’ housing.
Characterised by sharing resources, spaces and skills and by collective
governance — collaborative housing develops precisely those values, skills and
relationships one would expect to proliferate in ecosocialism. Eco-collaborative
housing, incorporating low impact living, can be considered a
transformative hybrid, trialling and demonstrating viable post-capitalist
futures.

Low impact living aims to create a relatively seamless
inhabitation of land and water to minimally disturb natural landscapes. Based
on varying levels of collective sufficiency, self-management, environmental and
social values, developments typically use permaculture and do-it-ourselves
mutual support, moving beyond housing to embrace livelihoods.

Examples I focus
on are about actively housing ourselves rather than relying on governments or
developers to provide housing. Beyond the right to housing, a right to the city
and a right to environmental justice, this is about a right for us to act in
our own interests, in solidarity and collectively.

Eco-collaborative
and low impact living

Both eco-cohousing and ecovillages economise on
personal space in modest private dwellings to the benefit of well-used communal
spaces and facilities. A cohousing project might have, say, 25 attached and
small private dwellings with a common house with a big kitchen, function and
guest rooms, common laundry and workshops. Earthsong Eco-Neighbourhood (New
Zealand) has 32 dwellings whose households share just 4 lawnmowers. Like the
best eco-collaborative models, they share open space with the local
neighbourhood community, run outreach environmental education programs and campaign
locally for more ecologically-friendly suburbs.

Both cohousing and ecovillages involve participatory
design, so residents have a much greater say in floor planning, style and the
materiality of their dwellings than normal. They have more opportunities for
self-building, other forms of sweat-equity and co-financing — making housing
more affordable. Cohousing and ecovillages develop neighbourhood governance
principles and processes that build personal and collective skills in
grassroots democracy and consensual decision-making. Self-management enables
and encourages residents to be more environmentally sustainable. I argue that
all these socio-political skills in co-governance will be critical in creating
not only sustainable neighbourhoods but also socialist futures.

The most inspiring cases are housing solutions with
utopian drivers and outcomes dreamed up and realised by activists, such as the
rural Twin Oaks (United States) that
strives for collective sufficiency, and the cultural, community and sustainability
based ufaFabrik (Berlin). Such
grassroots groups unite in Occupy! style to form, typically ecovillages,
independent of the state and market — drawing on rich socialist, feminist and
anarchist traditions but with a contemporary concern to address climate change
through radical innovations, frugal and convivial living. They have formed
communities that point towards the ‘community-based
mode of production’ referred to by Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano.

Calafou was
established by 30 or so ex-squatters who successfully sought a collective loan
to create an ‘eco-industrial post-capitalist colony’, a peri-urban ecovillage.
Ecovillages can be as large as thousands of residents and as long-standing as Christiania, the semi-autonomous
Freetown of Copenhagen. Many, like the income-sharing Twin Oaks have around
90–100 residents.

Twin Oakers are around, say 80 percent, collectively
sufficient and, thus, independent of the market. As a non-market socialist I
argue that collective living makes substantial gains in as much as large
households and neighbourhood communities of households are collectively
sufficient and focus on social and environmental values rather than monetary
values. Twin Oakers all contribute to their general product and take what they
need from it. You can even earn work credits for some campaigning!

Conclusion

Now — when many leftists are depressed about the
proliferation of single issue and identity politics — Small is Necessary shows
that actively pursuing affordable and sustainable housing can incorporate a
revolutionary focus. Some cases analysed even show that when people are
actively involved in creating sustainable housing collectively, ipso facto,
they become ecosocialists with grounded skills and knowledge for a
post-capitalist future.

Anitra
Nelsonis an activist-scholar and Associate Professor at RMIT
University’s Centre for Urban Research, author of Marx’s Concept of Money: The
God of Commodities (1999), co-editor of Life Without Money: Building Fair and
Sustainable Economies (2011), and her Small Is Necessary: Shared Living on a
Shared Planet was published by Pluto Press (London) in January 2018.

I remember that he told us that Alan Thornett had told him
that there were only two truly genuine ecosocialist organisations in the UK,
Socialist Resistance (SR) and Green Left, despite the newly formed Left Unity declaring itself, and some of its
affiliated parties, to be ecosocialist, and that SR had only a little over a
hundred members. I informed our US comrade that Green Left had around 300 members,
and think probably little has changed with both these numbers today.

However, this not the full picture, (and wasn’t even then, of the extent of ecosocialist thinking in the UK). I think it is perhaps a good
time to update this assessment, and please forgive me if I have missed out any ecosocialist
groupings here in this post.

In terms of political parties, probably not a lot has
changed, except for the formation, of Red
Green Labour, in the UK Labour party. This grouping, similar to Green
Left, who are a grouping within the England and Wales Green party, and formed,
I think, by ex-Green Left comrades since Jeremy Corbyn became Labour party
leader. The Labour party has, in general, moved in the direction of
ecosocialism too, but still has some way
to go yet.

The England and Wales Green party has for a number of
years been moving in the direction of ecosocialism, certainly ahead of the
Labour party, and contains many members who, for whatever reason, are not in
Green Left, but who would count themselves as ecosocialists. In Scotland,
within the separate Scottish
Green party, and across some other parties and individuals, there has been a
similar journey.

Outside of political parties, there are other
ecosocialist groupings as well. The
William Morris Society is a long standing example, as is the Red Green Study Group, whose
website appears to be undergoing some construction at the moment. One of its
members also runs a good ecosocialist blog, People and Nature. People and Planet, the
largest student network in the UK campaigning for social and environmental
justice, is also essentially ecosocialist. Some UK trade unions have also moved in an ecosocialist direction, but some haven't.

So things are moving, but of course ecological
destruction wrought by the capitalist system is moving much faster, with 16 out
of the last 17 years being record high temperatures, with each of these years
being hotter than the preceding one. Pollution, including the vast dumping of
plastic products has increased with species extinction also accelerating at an
alarming rate.

Most of the solutions proposed to tackle the crisis
from mainstream politicians fall short of addressing the root cause of the
problem, that is, the capitalist system of accumulation and infinite growth, preferring
attempts, mostly worthy, of treating the symptoms.

The Paris Climate Agreement
is a good example of this, which relies far too heavily on bogus targets for
reducing carbon emissions and technological fixes that do notcurrently exist. But this is not confined to the UK, and is
largely the global response (the USA has of course pulled out of the Paris
Agreement, under Donald Trump’s presidency).

And this is the nub of the problem. People in the UK
and pretty much everywhere else, are unable to think outside of the parameters
of the capitalist system. This is what the now sadly departed ecosocialist
thinker and writer Joel Kovel called the ‘force-field of capitalism.’ Also, there are still many on the left in the UK who cling to the idea
we can have endless economic growth, but under a traditional socialist society, eco-destruction will naturally be resolved. History shows us that this not the
case.

Some cause for optimism perhaps with advances in an ecosocialist direction over recent years in the UK, but there is still a
long way to go before this turns into the mass movement that we need to truly
challenge the dominant world ideology. Time is running out too.

Wednesday, 18 July 2018

I must admit
that Theresa May has survived much longer than I expected, after she called a
snap general election last year, which went so disastrously wrong, as May lost
the Parliamentary majority that she inherited on becoming leader in 2016. What
May has managed to do, largely by fudging decisions on Brexit, is to keep most
of her MPs onside. One painful day after another.

As was
signalled by the so called ‘Chequers agreement’ though, the time for fudging
decisions is nearly over. An agreement with the European Union (EU) on Brexit
needs to be made by the autumn at the latest, if we are to have one at all.
This is why May has finally shown her hand now with the strategy agreed with
her ministers at Chequers, the prime minister’s country retreat. A Government
Bill has been released reflecting this plan.

But the
agreement unravelled within days, with hard-line Brexit Cabinet ministers and
lower ranking ones resigning from their posts, and Tory MPs from the European
Reform Group inserting amendments to Bill that pretty much scuppers May’s plan.
To try to salvage the essence of the Chequers deal, the government accepted the
amendments rather than lose the votes in Parliament on these amendments, with
May claiming her strategy is still on course.

To make
matters worse, the Tory rebels in the pro-EU wing of the party, who gave the
Bill a tepid welcome, are in rebellious mode once again. It seems the prime
minister can’t win whatever she proposes. She is back to fudging again just to
get through to the summer recess next week, and try again when Parliament
re-convenes in September. The idea apparently floated by Downing Street that
recess be brought forward to avoid a challenge to the prime minister’s
leadership, shows just how worried May has become.

Tory
activists are also in open revolt against the Chequers agreement as this post from Conservative Home
details. The public
appear to be just as unimpressed with May finally showing her hand, with two opinion polls since the Chequers agreement, finding the Tories slender
lead over Labour has disappeared and Labour are now ahead by 4 or 5 points. The
bookies make 2018 as the favourite year for May to be replaced, or to step
down. These are the odds from Coral, but all the bookies have similar
odds.

Unless May
can dream up some kind of Brexit that will please the majority of her party, and
the only thing that will mollify the hard-line Brexiters is to crash out of the
EU with no deal whatsoever, a leadership challenge is likely when Parliament
returns in September. There may not be enough Tory MPs ready to back a challenger,
but there are enough to force the issue, and to inflict a deep wound on May’s
authority.

Margaret
Thatcher in 1990 led on the first leadership ballot with the votes of 204 Conservative MPs
(54.8%) to 152 votes (40.9%) for Michael Heseltine, her challenger, and 16
abstentions. But she was four votes short of the required 15% majority, on the
then rules, and a second ballot became necessary. It never happened, a wounded
Thatcher resigned instead.

If the
hardliners don’t get what they want, they will be then left with no other
option but to try and topple May and replace her with someone who will give
them a no EU deal Brexit. No doubt there will be plotting a plenty over the
summer and so it is likely a challenge will materialise in the autumn, unless
May completely caves in to their obsession.

This will
make pro-EU Tory MPs very unhappy, and they may find a challenger themselves,
or decide that the Tory party no longer represents their view and leave the
party, but they could cause a general election by supporting an opposition no
confidence vote in the government, along the way.

Either way, a
general election is made more likely, as any successor would be left with same
problems and the same Parliamentary arithmetic as May has. Whoever might
succeed May will need to change the complexion of Parliament to gain endorsement
for their Brexit plan, if they have one.

It seems to
me that we do need a general election, because the whole of politics in this
country presently is a complete shambles, which the Tories have ownership of. A
change of government is sorely needed, not a change at the top of the Tory
party, which has proved to be totally incompetent.

Sunday, 15 July 2018

The Australian multi-national corporation Lendlease,
has threatened Haringey Council in north London with legal action if it cancels
the contract for gentrification of its housing stock. The Haringey Development
Vehicle (HDV), was agreed by the council under the leadership of Claire Kober,
who has now resigned as a councillor to
take up a post as the new director of housing at Pinnacle Group, another
housing developer.

Many of the Labour councillors who supported Kober and
HDV have now stood down, and their replacements were all
anti-HDV, along with most of the council’s social housing tenants. Indeed it
was this very issue that forced Kober and her supporters out, just prior to this
year’s local government elections in May.

HDV is a form of social cleansing, where social housing
(where rents are around 30% of the market rate) is replaced with homes for sale
or at full market rate rent. Lendlease have agreed to provide 1000 homes for ‘affordable
rent’ (around 80% of the market rate), which amounts only about 10% of the
homes in the new development.

The Chief Executive Officer of Lendlease, Dan Labbard,
has written two letters this month to the new leader of the council, and the
Chief Executive, one on 4 July (see
here) and the latest on 9 July (see
here). In the 9 July letter he says that ‘we will have no choice but to seek
to protect Lendlease’s interests given very significant investment over the
last two and half years.’ This includes no doubt the cost of defending the High
Court Judicial Review and the appeal, but this is all part of the democratic
processes in the UK, which the company appears to hold in complete contempt.

Labbard goes on to say:

‘It is important that in reviewing the HDV at the
Cabinet on 17 July, the Council does not take any steps which infringes or damages
Lendlease’s rights. Most obiviously, it is not open to the Council in such
circumstances to attempt to abandon the procurement, in which Lendlease was
selected and then confirmed as the successful bidder.’

He says the council:

‘Must not take any decision which would be irrational,
in particular, in the context of the borough’s urgent need for housing – which requires
very significant investment and capability.’

So there you have it. Lendlease is threatening
Haringey Council with a lawsuit to recover costs and compensation if HDV is
cancelled, and their reasoning is that the council would be acting irrationally
if they did. There is no doubt that Haringey does have an urgent need for new
housing, as does much of London, but HDV is not what is needed by any rational
measure.

HDV would demolish thousands of social housing units
and replace them with high cost accommodation, either for sale or rent. Most of
the existing tenants would not be able to afford even the 10% of homes that
would be available for ‘affordable’ rent, let alone the other 90%. HDV is
nothing to do with addressing the borough’s urgent housing needs, but all about
Lendlease making a big fat profit by throwing less wealthy people out of their
homes and moving wealthier people into the new developments.

It is crystal clear that the previous Labour
leadership of the council were kicked out of office (replaced by anti-HDV councilors),
because the scheme is so unpopular locally, so why should this development
proceed? Where is the rationally in that?

Similar developments are planned or happening in other
parts of London, where they are unpopular too, precisely because they do not address
the housing crisis in London in any kind of satisfactory way. The will of the
people, to borrow a phrase from the head banging Brexiters, is being held in
contempt here, so I do hope the new council tells Lendlease where to go.

There is a lobby of the council Cabinet meeting on Tuesday
17 July at 5.30pm atHaringey Civic Centre. Those who wish to observe the
meeting will be able to do so from the council chamber balcony, but people should
do so respectfully.

Friday, 13 July 2018

There were two protests in London today, over the visit of US president Donald Trump to the UK. The Women's March was first assembling at 11 am outside the of the BBC in Portland Place in London and and marching to Parliament Square in the afternoon. The second protest marched from the BBC also and rallying in Trafalgar Square.

Big numbers attended for a Friday afternoon and evening, and some of the people I spoke to suggested that the way Trump has gone about insulting our Prime Minister and London's Mayor, so far, had swelled the numbers today. Trump has been extremely rude, considering the government have gone to great lengths to make him welcome. He arrogantly said in an interview in the Sun newspaper that he had man-splaned to Theresa May how she should go about Brexit negotiations, but she had ignored his 'advice.'

In London especially Trump is not popular at all. Londoners are rightly proud of the the city's diverse culture, a complete anathema to the president of the US. Here are some photos from today in London.

In the morning the Trump baby blimp was launched in Parliament Square. It drew a large crowd of protesters and tourists.

I was working when the Women's March and rally took place, but this photo is from The Guardian. Look at the huge numbers, estimated to be about 100,000 women.

The blimp made an appearance later in the day at Trafalgar Square. Like the president, it appeared to enjoy being the center of attention.

Trafalgar Square was packed, with people spilling out onto the surrounding roads, which were closed to traffic. The square holds about 50,000 people, but as I say, all the surrounding roads were also full. People came and went during the day, so there could well have been over been hundreds of thousands attending.

There was indeed a carnival atmosphere.

There was a visible police presence, with thousands hidden away in side streets, but all was peaceful whilst I was there.

A punch bag Trump.

Unfortunately I couldn't get anywhere near the stage, but a great day.

Thursday, 12 July 2018

As some of you may know already, the Green Party has
recently approved a national Climate Campaign, which will be put together over
the next 3 months. In fact, George
Monbiot’s Green Monday visit to Preston New Road (PNR) anti-fracking protest on
25 June was, in some ways, a field trial for what slogans and approaches to
adopt. There was widespread approval from those present for the phrase ‘Climate
Breakdown’ (to replace the less urgent-sounding ‘Climate Change’) and for the
Pacific Climate Warriors’ slogan ‘1.5 (degrees centigrade) to stay alive!’

This really IS a campaign whose time has come. Since 2000,
some regions of the UK have been hit by THREE massive floods: 2005, 2009 and
2015 - each one being described, at the time, as a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’
event. Of course, this is no
‘coincidence’ - to quote Goldfinger’s comment to James Bond:

“Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence; but three times
is enemy action!”

The main ‘enemy’ here is the fossil fuel industry which is the
main cause of global warming, 16 of the 17 hottest years ever recorded have
been SINCE 2000! What is more, EACH one
of those years has been hotter than the previous one’s record temperatures. As
regards the UK - as opposed to average global temperatures - last May was the
hottest since records began; and June is likely to beat that record.

Last month, the level of carbon in the atmosphere exceeded
410 particles per million (ppm) - the vast majority of climate scientists
believe that, to maintain the largely stable (and life-friendly) climate we’ve
had for the past 10,000 years, we need to keep carbon levels at around 350ppm.

So not too surprising, then, that only recently in the US,
Moody’s Investor Services - a Credit Ratings Agency - has warned US cities they
are very likely to have their credit ratings downgraded because of… the growing
risks posed by climate breakdown. Yet this government - despite claiming to be
serious about reducing the UK’s carbon emissions in line with the ‘commitment’
made by the previous UK government at the UN Climate Summit in Paris, 2015 -
has just approved a third runway at Heathrow which, on its own, will make
meeting those commitments impossible.

Several of these issues - and others - were touched on by
Julia Steinberger, Professor of Ecological Economics at Leeds University, when
she spoke at the 9 July anti-fracking Green Monday at Preston New Road [PR4
3PE]:

In particular, she pointed out how politicians and
governments were simply ‘not joining the dots’ as regards rising carbon
emissions from fossil fuels, global warming and ‘extreme weather events’ - such
as this long heat-wave which, in Quebec, Canada, alone, has already claimed 33
lives.

As an extreme example of not doing joined-up thinking on
climate breakdown, she pointed to the UK government’s hard push for fracking to
be rolled out across the UK as quickly as possible - most recently, by changing
planning laws so that fracking comes under ‘permitted development’ - thus
removing the right of local councils to say ‘No!’ Below is a link to her
speech:

In her speech, Julia also stressed the importance of
activists campaigning on many different fronts - including by putting pressure
on our elected representatives to show some climate leadership: especially as
the government is showing none.

This can be surprisingly successful - even in the most
unlikely places! Just last Saturday, 7 July, a small cross-party group was able
to persuade, Trudy Harrison, Tory MP for Copeland (in Cumbria) to sign the
Divest Parliament Pledge.

This was the culmination of a 3-month campaign which,
following an earlier refusal to sign, had included a ‘bombardment’ of letters,
emails and Tweets from constituents directly to the MP, along with letters and
press releases to the local newspapers. In fact, that very week, the Whitehaven
News published a letter - entitled ‘The clock is ticking on climate breakdown!’
- right next to Trudy Harrison’s regular Politics column!

Such work, of course, is not a replacement for direct action
activism - especially on the question of fracking. As John Ashton - UK Special
Representative for Climate Change 2006-12, and a frequent speaker at our PNR
protests - pointed out as early as 2014:

“You can be in favour of fixing the climate. Or you can be
in favour of exploiting shale gas. But you can’t be in favour of both at the
same time!’

So please come to PNR - or go to your nearest fracking site
- and protest and, if possible, frustrate the would-be fracking companies. In
addition, though, don’t forget to call on the government, your MPs and your
councillors to start doing some joined-up thinking on global warming and
climate breakdown - before it’s too late. The clock is ticking!”